Beyond Redemption
"
At the same time, on the other side of the city.
In a dark, damp basement, the air reeked of mold and human waste.
An old television was playing the award ceremony.
Vivian Harkins was curled up on a broken sofa. Her hair had turned completely white. She was not even thirty, yet she looked like a woman in her forties.
Her fingers were rough and covered with wounds that cut deep to the bone, left from carrying bricks at construction sites.
"Heh heh... red clothes... pretty..."
On the floor beside her, Landon Hutchinson grabbed a dead cockroach and stuffed it into his mouth, drooling as he giggled.
His intelligence would forever remain at the level of a three-year-old, and his body gave off a